This Great Chart Shows How Middle-Income Jobs Have Been Getting Massacred All Over The Place

The above chart says something really stark. Across a range of countries, middle-income jobs have been getting massacred.

Low-paying jobs have grown. And so have high-paying ones, over the past several years. But not middle-income ones.

The chart comes from a new paper, being presented at the huge economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, by economist David Autor. Autor argues that robots (or computers or automation) have most likely hurt middle-skill jobs but that robots cannot currently and may never cause a big problem for high- and low-level jobs that involve more gut feeling (writing a paragraph, straightening up an apartment, etc.). In other words, if your industry job has not already been lost to automation, you may not have as much to worry about as you think.